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We are on a journey installing the various Lync Server 2013 roles. Today we will install the Persistent Chat role collocated on our Lync Server 2013 Standard Edition Front End! I would like to give Elan Shudnow credit as I read over his excellent Persistent Chat with Enterprise Pool articles before launching on installing this collocated edition.

Since we are installing Chat on an existing Std. Front End, most things are taken care of already

Install full SQL (SQL 2008 R2 or SQL 2012) as a new instance called CHAT. You can follow the instructions here.

Next will define a Persistent Chat pool in our topology. Let’s Open Topology Builder

Define the new Chat Pool. Use the FQDN of our trusty Front End: FE01.lab.local and check Single computer pool.

Next. Now give this Chat pool a name. (just anything is fine)

Next. Click new to define a new SQL Server Store. We will use the SQL instance we installed for our chat role, so SQL Server FQDN = FE01.lab.local and Named Instance = CHAT

Our next item is defining the file store. Since this is a lab we will just use the existing Front End share we already setup for the FE which is \\FE01.lab.local\share. Click Finish.

We are done with the topology and you are given a chance to review it—everything looks great!

Let’s publish our topology by going Action | Topology | Publish…

Click Next.

Watch the publish Wizard complete. when done click Finish.

The next thing we will do is open the Lync Deployement Wizard and Update the Lync Server System by clicking Install or Upgrade Lync Server System. (this will install the chat services and install the SQL database)

Click the Run button with Step 2.

Click Next.

Watch as install happens and click Finish when done.

Now we are ready to start our newly installed Chat services. Click Run.

We can checkup that Lync Server Persistent Chat is successfully running…sure enough, great!

Next we need to login to the Lync Server Control Panel to configure our shiny new Persistent Chat server. Click on Persistent Chat | Persistent Chat Policy and check Enable Persistent Chat and click Commit.

Next we will add a Category. Click Category and New.

Next we need to add our Administrator user (user we are using to run Lync Powershell further down) to the “RTC Local Administrators” group. This is a local group on the Lync Front End Server, so to do this Open the “Computer Management” and open “Local Users and Groups”.

After this, log out and back into Windows get the new rights.

Next we will add a new chat room. Let’s drop into Lync Powershell and run

New-CsPersistentChatRoom -Name “XXX” -Category “FE01.lab.local\rd

Next we will add a user to this new Chat room by running the below Powershell:

After this we can login to our Lync client and use the Chat!

Continue your lab with more articles in this Lync Server 2013 Step by Step Series:

I am getting the same error, when i open the Persistent Chat Tab > Category it gives (1 Warning: All the channel servers are down) , i noticed that the "Lync Server Persistent Chat" service always stops by itself i run it manually, i see its status green in the topology but after sometime it stops again.the event viewer doesn't have any error logs.the machine has 12 GB RAM and 110 GB disk space.... any idea about this !!!! ???

You may also consider that you can setup Chat using the SQL Express database that is already installed on the SE Lync server - see comments from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg398500.aspx This would be yet another nice way to reduce the server count.

Persistent Chat Server can be deployed on the Standard Edition server. The Persistent Chat Server Back End Server and the Persistent Chat Compliance database can be collocated on the Standard Edition server on the local SQL Server Express Back End Server. For details about components that can be collocated there, see Supported Server Collocation in the Supportability documentation.

I've been reading your posts and they have helped me immensly deploy Lync. For that i thank you.

I have deployed PC and am able to create a room via the powershell script, however i cannot from the client. When i do, i get an error that states "User is not SIP-Enabled". I get the same error when i try to manage a room that i was made member of through powershell. *i have added myself as a creator and am a memer of every Cs and RTC group possible.

I followed through and created the Category and Rooms fine, they look exactly the same as yours when I run the get-cspersitentchatroom -identity cmdlet. However for some reason my users I enabled for this room are not getting the corresponding persistent chat button on their Lync clients (and yes they are on the 2013 client). Any idea what is up with that?

I get an error that the fqdn is already in use.So unfortunatly I can't seem to add a persistent chat pool on the front end server. Step 1 works but Step 2 gives a warning that the fqdn is already in use.Anyone know a way around it?

You have to have the "Message Queuing" feature installed. 1) Open Server Manager2) Right click features - Click Add Features3) Expand Message Queuing4) Expand Message Queuing Services5) Select Message Queuing Server and Directory Service Integration6) Click Install7) Publish the topology in the tomology builder (ensure no errors)8) Rerun all steps in the deployment wizardIt should be working now.

I also had an issue with the Persistent Chat service starting (then stopping a short time later) which made the chat channel unavailable.

Since all my Lync services runs as "Network Service" I resolved it by creating a new SQL Express instance on the standard server (I called it LyncChat) and adding Network Service to the DB Admins for that instance.

After that, I removed the unhappy Persistent Chat service (remove it from the topology, publish, run the Lync add/remove components wizard) then configured the Persistent Chat service again (with my new settings) in the Topology Manager then published. After running the Lync add/remove components wizard on my server again everything worked perfectly.

Personally I do not like using SQL Authentication unless I absolutely have to. This worked for me even though it would be more secure to use a domain user with permissions restricted to the ones Lync needs (and only the ones that Lync needs).

Great articles Matt. However upon installing (co-locating) persistent chat on my Lync 2013 Standard Edition with SQL Express, the services won't start. I get this error in the eventvwr:

The server is not compatible with the database at Data Source=(local)\rtc;Initial Catalog=mgc;Integrated Security=SSPI

AND

Microsoft Lync Server 2013, Persistent Chat could not start due to the following exception: at Microsoft.Rtc.Internal.Chat.Server.ServerCommon.Exceptions.StopServerException: Unexpected DB version. at Microsoft.Rtc.Internal.Chat.Server.ServerCommon.TransportServerBase.Initialize() at Microsoft.Rtc.Internal.Chat.Server.Channel.Server.ChannelServer.Initialize() at Microsoft.Rtc.Internal.Chat.Server.ServerCommon.MgcServiceBase.startServer() at Microsoft.Rtc.Internal.Chat.Server.ServerCommon.MgcServiceBase.createAndStartServer().

It isn't SQL Express 2012 SP1, should I install SP1 from Windows Update?

Many thanks for this. Please can you confirm if i can install SQL onto the front end server for running persistent chat, or if SQL needs to be installed on a seperate server? Or will persistent chat run using SQL express?

Hi Matt, I have installed Persistent Chat in my Lync 2013 environment, but I continuously get the banner on the client saying "Your chat room access may be limited due to an outage" I have un-installed and reinstalled Persistent chat, over, using a default and instance and named instance, to no avail. I have also removed and re applied all the updates, this still has not rectified the issue. I noticed in my snooper logs that I get SIP/2.0 481 Call Leg/Transaction Does Not Exist now I am getting a SIP/2.0 486 Busy Here.

It shows a connection between myself and the endpoint 100 trying then 200 OK before I get those errors, what could be the issue?

Hi Matt, Thanks for the instruction, but I also ran into "All the channel servers are down.", once starting "Lync Server Persistent Chat" it doenst come up, 2 errors get logged in the event log:----The server is not compatible with the database at Data Source=(local)\PCHAT;Initial Catalog=mgc;Integrated Security=SSPI----Microsoft Lync Server 2013, Persistent Chat could not start due to the following exception: at Microsoft.Rtc.Internal.Chat.Server.ServerCommon.Exceptions.StopServerException: Unexpected DB version. at Microsoft.Rtc.Internal.Chat.Server.ServerCommon.TransportServerBase.Initialize() at Microsoft.Rtc.Internal.Chat.Server.Channel.Server.ChannelServer.Initialize() at Microsoft.Rtc.Internal.Chat.Server.ServerCommon.MgcServiceBase.startServer() at Microsoft.Rtc.Internal.Chat.Server.ServerCommon.MgcServiceBase.createAndStartServer().

I tried to un-install and re-install Database/Deployment a couple of times nad also tried changing the DB instance, using RTC instance and default instance but no hope (same error).Any Idea?

Hi, I just thought I'd post this in case it helps anyone. If you've just installed the pChat role into an existing Lync environment that has already been patched, you will get the "all channel servers down" error. You will also notice that when trying to start the pChat services, you will get incompatible database errors as Seyed above. You need to re-launch the lyncServerUpdateInstaller from the CU level of your Lync Front End server(s). You'll notice that the Installed Version for Persistent Chat is not up to date. Click Install Updates, then run from Lync Powershell the Install-Database Command against the Persistent Chat Role / SQL Server / DB Instance and the service should now start and you can continue.

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About Me

Matthew M. Landis has various industry certifications: Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, Microsoft Certified Database Administrator, Microsoft Office Certified Expert, Microsoft Certified Dynamics, Network+ and A+.
In 1995 Matt started Landis Computer which has been providing IT services to small businesses for 14 years and is now a 11 person Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. Matt has over 14 years of field experience implementing Windows Server, Microsoft & Dynamics ERP solutions in small business environments.
Matt is very active in the Windows based IP PBX community: He was a 3CX Valued Professional from 2008-2010 and has co-authored a book on Windows communication software "3CX IP PBX Tutorial". He is pbxnsip Certified, he has contributed thousands of posts to the 3CX community forum and he writes the monthly Windows PBX Report e-newsletter for VARS and administrators. His company, Landis Computer, was the first company in the USA to be designated a 3CX Premium Partner.
When not working and when a chance affords Matt likes to travel internationally with his wife Rosalyn and is very involved in his church.